In anticipation of the beginning of Daylight Saving Time this weekend, the Indianapolis Star has numerous articles this morning on the subject. (Thanks to Jim for compiling the links.):
Pulaski County commissioners on Monday abandoned plans to stay on Eastern time, saying concerns over a possible federal lawsuit outweighed their unhappiness over the U.S. Department of Transportation’s decision to move the county to the Central time zone.
“We caved,” said Mike Tiede, president of the Pulaski County Board of Commissioners. “We don’t want to spend a bunch of taxpayers’ money trying to defend this. The Department of Transportation threatened to hand us over to the Justice Department, and our county can’t afford that kind of stuff.”
There is also an interesting quote from a USDOT official who said “We don’t have the authority to look the other way. In the ’60s the department did so, was sued and lost.” Unfortunately, there was no follow up about what the heck was going on in southeastern Indiana where those counties were illegally observing DST. In any case, Pulaski county officials should never have been placed in this situation. The Governor and the General Assembly passed the buck and the US Dept. of Transportation’s ad hoc approach to this situation left Pulaski in a different position than its similarly situated neighbors.
I feel compelled to mention that I see this article as just another “kids these days” article, hyperventilating about the sorry state of the youth of today. I’m not an old codger, but I am 34 years old. And ever since I can remember, I’ve been hearing or reading stories bemoaning the sorry state of kids these days. I suspect people have been complaining about “kids these days” for centuries, if not millenia.
But, putting that aside and taking the premise of the story as correct and worrisome, DST can only exacerbate the problem, such as it is. By May 31 when school lets out (more or less), it won’t get dark until 9:45 p.m. EDT. That won’t encourage kids, or anyone else, to get to sleep any earlier. Wake up times, on the other hand, will tend to remain fixed due to scheduling, regardless of when people get to sleep.
Doug,
Curious if you can answer this question. My favorite neighborhood bar is all upset that they are required to move the clocks forward at 2:00 a.m. and close down at that time. Of course, its final 4 weekend and that’s going to shave an hour off their working hours on one of their biggest weekends of the year. They don’t understand why the clocks can’t be moved forward at 4:00 a.m. Have you heard any discussion about that and how they choose the time? I thought when I lived in Illinois we always moved the clocks forward/backward at 12:00 a.m. The final 4 used to not fall on the time change weekend until a few years ago.
There was an article (maybe Sunday? maybe the Indy Star?) that said 2:00 a.m. on Sunday morning was chosen because that was determined to be the point in time when there was the least traffic on the train tracks and therefore presenting the least chance for danger when the switches were reset, or something.
And, just an aside, I remember being irritated at a bar I was at one October in Ohio when they switched the clocks. I argued with the vigor only a drunk can muster that, since the clocks would fall back from 2 a.m. to 1 a.m., they should remain open an extra hour. I was told they couldn’t do that. Whether they couldn’t or wouldn’t, who knows.
So much of history of time has come from unofficial,homerule,to now a very legalistic mandate. Bars in Chicago would set the clock ahead or back at whatever time it would give them greatest advantage,and im sure that’s the way it used to be.But as soon as home rule becomes a means to manipulate the system for everyone,then the powers crack down. Maybe Pulaski County got the law laid down to them because USDOT could visualize St Joesph County declaring itself on CT… Then what?
As far as offical time, the order of things this Sunday morning will be:
1:59:58
1:59:59
3:00:00
The fun part is the Sunday in October when we see:
1:59:58
1:59:59
1:00:00
It might be the 2:00am hour we repeat, but you get the idea.
So, if you’ve been pounding beers into you from 1:45am to 1:59am on that Sunday morning, then you should be able to get in the car at 1:00am and drive home safely since you technically won’t have had anything to drink for another 45 minutes! Hmm…
Gary, tell your bartender about the “guilt-free” special in October when he ushers his customers out a 1:59am this Sunday! Come back in a few months and drink twice!
I double-checked with NIST:
http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/b.html
It is the 1:00am hour that repeats. They also mention that the 2:00am time was changed for the reason Doug mentioned, plus:
Late enough that we don’t roll back to yesterday.
Early enough that the entire US switches before daybreak.
Early enough to not cause problems for early shift or sunrise Easter service.
They also mention that the bars, close at 1:59, not 2:00, so technically all bars loose 1 hour of business that never comes back. Most ignore this though.
One thing this made me think of though: What about people working during the shift? Do they get shorted time? Do they get O.T. in the fall?
I went to school at MSU (Michigan State) for two years. At the time, the school year didn’t start until mid to late September and didn’t end until mid June. It was very difficult getting homework done and studying for finals in May and June, let alone going to bed, when it didn’t get dark until about 10 o’clock.
I didn’t go to bars then and don’t do so now, so that has never been a concern of mine. :)
Theres an a good post just listed on USDOT Log number 22114 explaining why Martin County should stay on CT.
I read the article about sleep for teens. While they want to shift some of the focus to parents and electronic devices, the biggest issue I have seen is after-school sports.
While my girls are not in school yet, I do plan to challange the coach of whatever sport they want to play in. How does the coach (they are often also health, bio, or PE teachers) expect my child to get a full night’s sleep with x number of hours homework and an away weekday game where they leave right after school and don’t get home until 9 or 10? Grab a flashlight, work on the bus, and sleep on the way home? Great, if you don’t get car sick when reading in the car and can actually force yourself to stop talking to your friends and sleep in the car…
It will be weird on April 3rd when I wake up and walk the dogs at 6:30 and it won’t be near as bright as 4 days earlier.
I went to all of the local time zone meetings aka “The Daniels-Mineta Dog and Pony Show”. What a complete waste of time. The nauseating love letter that Mineta wrote about “his man bitch …uh mitch” that was published in the South Bend Tribune left no doubt which way the DOT was going to rule. What a complete travesty and a slap in the face to the people of Indiana and particularly St. Joe county. Of course this will be devastating to schoolchildren and the workforce. It will be like Mitch and his Republican cronies in the House,Senate, and the Chamber of Commerce encouraging people to stay up later and then waking them up an hour before they have to get up. Bait and Switch Mitch and his DST-Toll road giveaway-Major Bowel Movement cronies have left a skidmark in the pants of Indiana that will take years to clean up if it’s ever cleaned up at all.
Looks like Martin + Daviess counties are getting ZERO interest from other area counties to repetition as a group for ET.
That doesn’t surprise me a bit.
Pulaski County is an interesting point in this discussion. First I totally agree with Lou’s point if the feds look the other way on Pulaski County the St. Joe County will jump right in and few would have anything to say about stopping that move. Secondly, now I realize this is very Oliver Stone like, but what if the fed’s did that to Pulaski on purpose to get Mitch and his cronies to see that Indiana needs to petition as a state for a time zone NOT as counties. Think about it, St. Joe works hard, and has their petition denied along with; Fulton and Marshall,. Elkhart testifies against St. Joe. St. Joe denied leaving Fulton and Marshall denied after they had provided extra evidence for their petitions. Pulaski does nothing after the intial denial, yet is changed. Sounds like a formula for discontent if you ask me.How to solve get the entire state in the same time zone.
I think they changed Pulaski just to make the map look cleaner. As it is, the time line for the northwest corner goes pretty much south, then west to the state line, making something of a square. Without Pulaski, it would be more jagged.
That would be true if they would have changed White County also. Plus look at a map of North/ South Dakota, no straight lines are being followed
The extreme passion of the thwarted CT advocates is beyond comprehension by any out-of-stater.It looks like it might be a very volatile political atmosphere in Indiana.It’s funny, because I wouldnt vote for Gov. Daniels just because he’s so conservative, but getting DST passed I would consider a great accomplishment, but Im not a fulltime resident, and that says it all.
I think you’ve hit on part of the political problem. People who like how their time got changed might think it’s nice, but they’re not going to change their vote because of it. But a non-trivial number of people who don’t like how their time was changed probably will change their vote because of it.
Couple the time-zone debate with the lease of the toll road and you might have a very large number of voters voting against Mitch. Theme being he just did not listen or care!
Time Zones and Toll Roads. I’d guess gratitude in politics has a half life of about six months. The urge for revenge can last a generation or two. Any bets on what year it will be when the next state or local level Republican wins a county wide vote in St. Joseph County?
We tried DST decades ago, hated it, and changed back. I don’t want it, wasn’t asked, and won’t like it. I’ll go along with it until we change back to EST again. I’ll be sure to vote against those politicians who voted in favor of it, beginning with our “one-term-wonder” of a governor (who, incidentally, began his term of office by attacking funding for mentally handicapped children…)
Pulaski County is putting all county schools on a time that is the same as ET and setting the Court House hours so they’re the same hours as if the county were on ET and many people are evidently going to operate as if they were on ET.One commissioner was quoted in local Pulaski County newspaper as complaining that USDOT has had county’s re-petition for ET for 3 weeks and what is taking them so long! The question is : how can we tell if a county is going on homerule,or just readjusting those times that arent fixed by federal law?… seems the same.
Not quite the same. Schools and court houses might infulence businesses, or it might not. Home rule would dictate that everyone MUST follow this time. Now they’ll have the option to change with the school or change with the state.